Serious Offshore - Simmons Marine St Clair, Illegal U-Turn?

In St Clair Michigan, at the 29th running of the St Clair River Classic by OPA, Jim Simmons and Jason Zolecki in Simmons Marine, were running hard in second place, were trying to get past the first place boat Crazy Rythm. The race was one of the best of the day, however, on lap 6 we believe, Simmons Marine decided to try a hard cut to the inside to try a pass.

(One shot out of sequence for the automatic slider spot)

Coming down the backstretch, heading into the corner you could kind of see what the plan may be by where their eyes were focused.

And then, this happened!

The conversation at this point was, (other than man, sure glad that's over), are we sinking? There sure is a lot of water spewing out the bilge pumps.

They opened the engine hatch, water not too bad considering they had pulled a shaft out of the housing.

Got one engine running.

Surprisingly, it actually went into gear so they could idle back.

I'm thinking that was an illegal U-Turn. "In Ontario in 2019, there were 96 convictions for illegal U-turns – those came with a $110-150 fine and two demerits. So, hopefully the Canadians don't use these photos as evidence and send Jim and Jason tickets, and demerits!

They could probably plead ignorance, since one is from Ohio and the other from Missouri. Or, they could say they thought they were in Michigan, and in Michigan U-Turns are legal, even if to make a left you first have to make a right. Although, U-turns in Michigan are required to be made safely. I'm not sure the evidence shows this one as being safe?

A bit more damage than originally thought.

From talking with Jim after, it seems the boat acted weird in the north turn, then did this on the south turn. They think they actually broke a skeg off in the north turn, so the boat wouldn't turn this time.

Parts are ordered so the boat should make St Petersburg hopefully